


one last kiss

by ataxophilia



Category: Pushing Daisies
Genre: Character Death, F/M, like literally this is ned and chuck dying, that's what the fic is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 12:55:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1348183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ataxophilia/pseuds/ataxophilia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I think," he says, his voice quivering from decades of use and the emotion welling up in his throat. "I think today might be the day."</p>
            </blockquote>





	one last kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Essentially, Fiona asked if I'd write Ned accidentally touching Chuck, and I twisted it into something a little happier. A little.
> 
> Unbeta'd, all mistakes are mine and mine alone.
> 
> I'm sorry in advance.

The sunlight streaming in through the just-opened curtains wakes Ned up from his doze. It’s not the most unpleasant way to be woken up - certainly nothing to complain about compared to some of the awakenings he’s had over the years - and it is made sweeter still by the sound of Chuck saying, soft and close to his ears, “Good morning, pie-boy.”

"Morning," he manages, though it’s getting harder and harder to get words out. Chuck, who knows that, just like she knows every other thing there possibly is to know about Ned, moves into Ned’s line of sight and smiles. 

"Don’t strain yourself," she warns. Ned exhales, a little puff of breath that means laughter now, and the corners of Chuck’s eyes crinkle up. "How are you feeling today?"

As he does every morning, Ned considers the question. His bones ache with tiredness. It took more effort than it should have to open his eyes. All his cells feel drained of something vital. 

Ned, who has spent more of his life than he cares to calculate meddling with death, knows what this hollow right down to the centre of him means.

"I think," he says, his voice quivering from decades of use and the emotion welling up in his throat. "I think today might be the day."

They have talked many times over the last decade or so, as the threat of Ned dying grew closer and closer, about what might happen when this very moment came. No conclusions are ever reached, as is the case in most of their discussions about age and growing old and death, because, despite the discrepancies Ned’s aging has created, Chuck still loves him like the sun loves sunrise, and he still loves Chuck like the stars love sunset. 

The discrepancies, and the disagreements caused by them, are as follows: Chuck, thanks to Ned’s re-aliving, hasn’t aged a day since she was brought back to life; Ned, having never died and been re-awoken, has aged as all men must; Ned, because of this seemingly significant difference, has offered Chuck many, many outs through the years; Chuck, despite now appearing young enough to be Ned’s daughter, granddaughter on good days, has refused them all. 

Which, when combined with Ned’s latest confession, leaves them at a stalemate. 

"Today?" Chuck repeats, her smile gone. Ned wants, so very badly, to put it back, but he can’t lie to Chuck today anymore than he could fifty-odd years ago. 

"Today," he confirms. 

Chuck blinks and sits down on the edge of the bed. “Wow,” she says. “I always imagined hearing you say that would be like getting a firework blasted into my stomach. Or my chest.”

The idea of Chuck picturing this moment makes Ned’s already heavy heart feel even heavier. “Oh,” is all he can get out in reply, but what he wants to say is, what does it feel like? 

"Instead," Chuck continues, as though she heard his question, "I feel- muffled. Like someone just dropped me into a pool and there’s a lot of water between me and the rest of the world. Does that make sense?"

"Yes," Ned says. What he means is, I feel like I’m in the pool with you. The weak smile that Chuck flashes him makes him think maybe she understands that. She reaches out and rests her hand on the sheets next to Ned’s, their pinky fingers less than an inch apart. Next to the smoothness of her skin, Ned’s hand looks as though it’s mostly dead already. 

Unable to bear the contrast, Ned looks at Chuck instead, watching her watch their hands. After a moment, she looks up, too, meeting his eyes with another watery smile. 

"I don’t suppose you’d mind awfully if I lay down next to you with the sheets between us, would you?" she asks. 

The ghost of a smile flickers across Ned’s face, and he shuffles carefully towards the wall to make room for Chuck to lie down beside him. She curls up on her side, facing him, and presses her hand against the top covering Ned’s chest. “Tell me when it’s getting closer,” she says. Ned wants to ask why but isn’t sure he wants to know the answer, so he nods mutely. Chuck, with her uncanny ability to read Ned, smiles fondly and adds, “I’m going to stay right here, I promise.”

It takes exactly four hours, thirty eight minutes and seventeen seconds for the creeping pull of death to turn into an insistent tug. They fill the space with stories; take it in turns to recount an adventure, or a mishap, or a quiet moment full of that soft kind of contentedness that only comes when you are full of real, honest happiness at the state of the world. Ned’s bones grow steadily heavier. It gets harder to keep his eyes open. His cells get emptier and more hollow, until, eventually, he says, “Chuck.”

Chuck’s eyes snap straight to his, the anecdote she was retelling dying on her lips. “Chuck,” Ned repeats. It feels almost impossible to get that word alone out, but Ned has more he wants to say, so he keeps talking. “You were- the best thing to ever happen to me, and I- want you to find a new life that make you as happy as you’ve made me.” He pauses to swallow, and Chuck shuffles closer. “I love you, Chuck.” Another pause, another shuffle closer. “Thank you- for- for-“ 

His breathing catches. The metaphorical water of the metaphorical pool he at the bottom of gets darker and presses down with more pressure. 

"For everything," he finishes, his voice barely more than a croak. 

Chuck pushes herself closer still - so close, in fact, that they could almost pass as normal lovers curled up together in bed, had she aged along with Ned. “Oh, Ned,” she breathes. She’s smiling again, but it’s a sadder smile than Ned has ever seen grace her face. “It’s me who should be saying thank you. You gave me my life back. You gave me you back. Nothing could ever make me happier than that.”

She looks up at Ned for a moment longer, as though studying every last inch of his face to commit it to memory, or perhaps as though searching for the piemaker who reawoke her all those decades ago, or maybe even as though tracing the face of the boy she shared her first kiss with before she ever died at all. And then she leans in impossibly close.

"I’m sorry, Ned," she says, and then, "I love you, too." 

Before Ned can ask what she means - though he doubts he would have the strength to, so close to his very last breath - Chuck closes the space between them and presses her mouth very carefully against his own. 

It only takes one touch. Of all the awful truths Ned has known, this has been the most awful, and the most definite. 

It only takes one touch. 

The body of twice-alive, twice-dead Charlotte Charles falls limply against Ned’s chest. Ned, too weak to even manage a, no, or a, Chuck, closes his eyes and drops his head to rest against Chuck’s. 

This ending seems almost inevitable, he realises, as the last of his life slips away. Almost poetic. Almost romantic. 

But mostly, he thinks, it is fitting.

Ned, the dead-waking piemaker, dies with a smile on his face and the girl he loved in his arms, smiling right back.


End file.
